Don't Panic
by bibliotech
Summary: It started with the lights.


It started with the lights.

John noticed them everywhere--pale blue ceiling lights on his way from the mess hall. Light green wall panels lighting up at the end of the night, stopping next to his door. Even the floor had a glow to it. He was pretty sure that that was new, at least.

"What are you talking about?" Rodney asked around a mouthful of pseudo-chicken. "The lights are always on. I haven't seen anything different."

"No, they're just--" John shrugged, vaguely waving his hand. "They're more...specific, you know?"

"Right." It was hard to be sarcastic and stuff your face at the same time, but Rodney was doing a pretty decent job of it. "The lights are being specific at you. That sounds awful."

Okay, this wasn't working. John decided to try again. "They're lighting up at specific times, Rodney."

That got his attention. Rodney put down his fork, his eyes wide. "Really? Since when?"

John shrugged again. "I dunno. Awhile, I guess. Since we got back, maybe."

"Okayokayokay, wait." Rodney pointed his fork at John, his mouth screwed up in what John liked to think of as his pre-profound look. "So, that's about...three weeks, maybe? Almost a month? And you're just saying something now?"

Another shrug. "Yeah?"

Rodney gave him that pitying, I-can't-believe-they-let-you-out-alone look before starting in on his city-related theories. John figured the lights would be back to normal in a day or so.

It wasn't until the third day that John noticed that his quarters seemed a little...different.

"The mirrors are tilting?"

"Well, I wouldn't call it tilting, exactly..." John trailed off as he tried to find a better word for 'tilting'. McKay and Zelenka looked at him expectantly.

"More like...leaning away from the wall." There. That was better. He nodded, waiting for them to find a way to fix it.

Instead, they looked at each other before turning to watch him carefully. John was starting to get the feeling that they weren't really inclined to take him seriously.

"Leaning," he stressed, giving them his most serious look--the one that said the Wraith were coming, they were out of blue jell-o and manatory workout day was today. Then he strode out of the lab without looking back. Best to remain confident in these types of situations.

"So, let me get this straight." Rodney was doing his best not to laugh, but John could see the signs--his lips were tightly compressed, and the corners of his mouth were trembling. He gave Rodney a dirty look, picking up _War and Peace_ and flipping it to a random page.

"First there were lights--oh, I'm sorry, _specific_ lights. Then the mirrors were tilting to accomodate you. Oh, and the water was perfectly heated without you having to make any adjustments, let's not forget that one." He paused for effect. "And now you're hearing romantic music in your quarters. After dark. And it's only in your room."

John glared at the page, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

"You know what this means, right?"

"If I knew what it meant, would I be telling you about it so you can laugh at me?" It was surprisingly easy to talk through clenched teeth. John rubbed his jaw.

"Atlantis is wooing you!"

"What?" John dropped his book, giving Rodney a horrified look. Rodney was too busy laughing his ass off to reply, rolling around on the bed and howling.

"There's no way that's even possible, McKay! This is a city we're talking about! It's a malfunction! A computer error! It's--" He gave up, sinking back into his chair. "It's Atlantis, isn't it?"

Sometimes he really, really hated this galaxy.

Okay, so maybe after they'd come back, he'd been a little...resentful about how Atlantis had just rolled over for the Ancients. Sure, they were Ancients and all, but John had gotten pretty used to being the blue-eyed boy of the city, and it might've stung a little. Just a little.

And maybe, _maybe_ after they'd come back and things had settled down, he'd had some lingering resentment. But not much. And it's not like he was obvious about it or anything. Just a few hurt feelings that went away after a few days of moving in and re-learning which drawer held his socks and minor details like that.

So it was entirely possible that when Atlantis started in with the lightshow, he hadn't minded at first. It was nice to be back in a place where he could think the door open with your mind, or the city lit up to greet you when he came back from a mission. It was like having a puppy, without the mess. But puppies didn't arrange Ancient versions of 90s pop ballads to be piped in through the speakers. All night. Every night. At high volume.

John covered his eyes. How, exactly, was he supposed to tell a city that he just wanted to be friends?

It didn't help that Rodney refused to see the many, many ways in which this was a terrible, awful thing.

"I don't get it. You have an entire city that loves you--and I mean _loves_ you. It wants you to be happy and healthy and have whatever you want. And how is this bad, exactly?"

John rolled his eyes, reaching for Rodney's coffee cup. "You know, I'm supposed to be running with Ronon right now."

"So why aren't you?" Rodney asked absently, scrolling through his e-mails.

Slouching down in his chair, John mumbled, "He said the way the floor lights up wherever I run is distracting." He crossed his arms, giving Rodney a dirty look. It was completely wasted, of course--Rodney had the ability to blithely ignore the nastiest of glares.

"You know, I really would've thought that Atlantis would be more--I don't know, selective." Rodney waved a hand in John's direction, adding, "Not that you're not great and wonderful and all of that stuff, but, I mean, hey, there are other people here--and admittedly, they're not as full of the Magic Gene as you are, but some of us do have other qualities that should be apprecia--"

"Rodney!" John kicked him, adding another dirty look for effect. "Now is not the time to be jealous, it really isn't."

"I'm not jealous!" Rodney was wearing the face that John recognized as the guilt-masquerading-as-offense look. "You're the one that's shacking up with a _location_, thank you very much! I'm just saying, why you?"

John got up and stalked away without another word. Sometimes he wondered if it would be too teenage-girlish to give Rodney the silent treatment. It was really, really tempting.

The vines were the last straw.

"I'm sleeping in here," John announced, shoving past a blinking and confused Rodney. He went straight for the bed, sitting and leaning over to undo his boots.

"Hello, how are you, nice to see you as well," Rodney grumbled, leaning against the wall to eye him suspiciously. "What are you doing in my room?"

"Rodney," John said with exaggerated patience, because it was either that or yell and break things, "There is a tree outside my door."

Rodney froze. "Someone left a tree outside your door?"

John held up a finger. "No. The _city_ left a tree outside my door. There is a vine with flowers growing all over my door. _Vines_, Rodney. On my _door_."

Instead of making some sarcastic and undeserved comeback, Rodney laced his fingers together, staring at his nails. John froze, eyeing him. "Wait, you did the thing with the vines?"

Rodney cleared his throat. "Ah. I, uh. I might've...earlier. You know, after...well. I thought it would help if I had a talk with..." He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I can't believe I gave a city--a sentient city, nonetheless, but still, a location, a dwelling, a--okay, okay," he said in a rush, finally noticing the death rays that John was silently projecting in his direction, "I gave the city...uh. Dating advice? Possibly?"

John mentally upped those death rays to a death missile. Set to 11.

"I didn't say much!" Rodney spread his hands out, trying to look as helpless as possible. It didn't work. "I just suggested that hey, you know, Sheppard's not really good with the whole commitment thing, and he needs to take things slowly, so maybe baby steps would be best for now, until you're more comfortable, and--"

"I can't decide what's worse," John said, his voice weary. "That you're advising the city on a relationship with me, or that somehow, I ended up the girl in this highly improbably scenario." He pulled off one boot, starting on the next. "Well, guess what, Cyrano. You can tell the city that I? Just want to be friends." He started work on the other boot, tugging it off with a sigh. "She's a nice girl and all that, but I really don't see how it can work. We're just too different. I'm a man, she's a city. We're from two different worlds. But hey, that doesn't mean we can't hang out or anything, right?" He gave Rodney his sweetest smile before crawling under the covers. "Good luck with that, McKay."

Rodney took several tentative steps toward the bed. "If I share with you, this doesn't count as cheating, does it? I mean, you're technically in a relationship."

John rolled on his stomach, his voice muffled by the pillows. "You can be my rebound girlfriend."

"Very funny. No, seriously, Atlantis isn't going to try and kill me while I sleep, is she?" Rodney sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes darting around the room as if looking for potential threats.

John yawned, patting the edge of the mattress. "If she does, she's gotta get through me first. Shut up and go to sleep, Rodney."

"Okay," Rodney said reluctantly, grabbing a fistful of blanket and tugging it away from John. "But you get to sleep between me and the door, in case robots try to break it down."

"We have robots?" John's voice held a note of sleepy hopefulness.

"Of course we have robots. I've been hiding them from you all this time, just so I could wait until the perfect moment to reveal them. I was thinking for your next birthday, perhaps?"

"No, really--do you think there are robots here? We haven't gone over the entire city, and--"

"Good_night_, Sheppard." 


End file.
